Full Cast And Crew

Amy Heckerling and Cameron Crowe's 1982 adaptation of Crowe's book 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' is a classic that rises above the low-brow teen-sex comedy that Universal executives probably expected when they green lit the Valley-set film with a bunch of no-name actors (outside of Mr. Hand, of course), a soundtrack of artists who just so happened to mostly be represented by the film's executive...

After a two-week hiatus...and a hilariously unexpected detour in our attempt to do "The Manchurian Candidate" on this episode, my guest Keir Graff and I pivoted to 'The Color of Money' and I'm so glad we did. This episode features a lot of great stories about the making of the film, and also includes plenty of necessary discussion about 'The Hustler', specifically Piper Laurie, Paul Newman, Jackie...

In the late 90s three 28-year-olds with zero documentary filmmaking experience re-ignited a college dorm room pipe dream about making a documentary about the life and career of singer/songwriter/actor/activist Bobby Darin.  What followed was equal parts kismet and catastrophe and might serve as a useful blueprint and cautionary tale for anyone contemplating stepping into the unknown of a dream and...

James Cameron has made 3 of the top 4 highest-grossing films of all time, with a collective box office of more than EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS. Recently I had the occasion to watch both 'Avatar: The Way of Water' (currently the #3 highest-grossing film) and the 4K 3D re-release of 1997's 'Titanic' (#4). Collectively, that's about 7 or 8 hours in the Cameronverse.   In this ruminative episode, I share t...

Joined again by Full Cast and Crew spirit-animal Richard Brown for a deep discussion about James L. Brooks' 1987 picture 'Broadcast News', a stealthily subversive rejection of Hollywood Rom-Com tropes and one of the greatest films about television ever made.   Topics include: The great, troubled life and career of Polly Platt. Jim Brooks and 'Terms of Endearment' The research/interview based origi...

Hey, where you been? I guess it's me, not you...where have I been? Sitting through Avatar! THREE HOURS AND TWELVE MINUTES! Feel my pain.  In this catch-up episode we'll talk Oscar noms and snubs, Best Picture thoughts on 'Tar', 'The Fablemans', 'Top Gun: Maverick', 'Everything Everywhere All At Once', 'All Quiet on the Western Front', and 'Triangle of Sadness'. Plus a speculation on why 'She Said'...

A favorite on the podcast is 'movies about making movies' and Tim Burton's funny, moving, spot-on 1950's Hollywood cautionary tale/celebration of the business 'Ed Wood' is one of the best.  Guesting on this episode is Brad Kane, Co-Show-Runner of HBO Max's forthcoming Stephen King 'It' prequel series 'Welcome To Derry'.  Brad's been an actor, director, producer, and writer, and brings such interes...

'Chinatown' has it all: premium 1960's and 70's counter-cultural bona fides in Jack Nicholson and Robert Towne.  The ultimate Robert Evans production, as Producer AND head of the studio; a situation that allowed the barren earth from which 'Chinatown' sprung to be watered and tended to carefully despite strong headwinds against it ever coming to fruition. In this episode, I get into the backstory...

As we wrap up the Full Cast and Crew year, I'm sharing some off-beat Christmas cheer with you all in this, our first-ever Weird Christmas Spectacular.  Frequent listeners to the pod have heard me say "weird is good" many times, and the picks in today's episode reflect not films or tv shows or songs that are weird for weird's sake; they reflect things with a decidedly bent holiday spirit in all the...

A heartfelt appreciation about how good and truthful Steven Spielberg's deeply personal, funny, and moving film 'The Fabelmans' is.   Go and see this film in a theater.  It's hard for the film's trailer to capture the unique and intelligent tone of the film, so I position this episode towards those of you who judge a book by its cover and a movie by its trailer (which is all of us, let's face it)....

Thrilled to finally deep-dive into the making-of David Fincher's brilliant newspaper movie/police procedural/serial killer obsession film 'Zodiac'. Topics: The insane detail that went into preproduction. Praise for producer Brad Fischer and screenwriter Jamie Vanderbilt. Soundbites from Fincher's obsessive attention to period detail. Sound from the real Dave Toschi, memorably played by Mark Ruffal...

I originally recorded this episode as a dry-run for a forthcoming and entirely separate-from-FCAC limited-run podcast seriesI'm going to be doing in 2023 about Dead & Company's final tour (SPINOFF!), but my conversation with my friend and guest Geoff Weed was so illuminating about so many things: the nature of enduring fandom, the power of music and the skills of its most talented practitioners, f...

Joined by frequent guest Frazer Rice (links to previous eps below), this week I dive into the fascinating backstory of the making-of John Carpenter's 1978 horror flick 'Halloween', a genre-busting/genre-defining/genre-expanding piece of forever in the movie business and in the popular imagination.   From its roots in Carpenter's 'Dark Star' to 'Assault on Precinct 13' to the happenstance on-set de...

These are our listeners! And this week, after a couple recommendations for the listeners, I'm reading feedback helpful and otherwise. Out of the mouths of babes. Epistolary output from the peanut gallery. Unsolicited offers. Random opinions. Two-star ratings! One-star ratings! More! Recommendations in this episode: Canyon Crows 'Hauntology' on Spotify. Chuck Leavell: The Tree Man on YouTube. Jean...

After my last episode with the wonderful, artfully creepy 'The Dead Zone'...I wanted more. More Walken.  More Sci-Fi.  More 1983.  And then Louise Fletcher died.  And it was all right there: BRAINSTORM.  Douglas Trumbull's 1983 science-fiction passion project-turned-albatross.  On the surface it has it all: a killer cast, a great premise (what if you could experience the thoughts and feelings of o...

Jason is joined by frequent FCAC contributor Richard Brown as they discuss David Cronenberg's atypical (for Cronenberg) film of Stephen King's novel "The Dead Zone".  A deep celebration of this extraordinary film and the Oscar-worthy (and criminally ignored) performance of Christopher Walken, this episode also celebrates Cronenberg, Producer Debra Hill, Composer Michael Kamen, Walken Co-Star Brook...

The making of George Lucas' first 'Star Wars' film is an incredible saga unto itself. The global success of 'Star Wars' and how it changed the film business forever is an incredible saga unto itself. The industry advancements in technology pioneered by Lucas' special effects shop Industrial Light and Magic is an incredible saga unto itself. The above, and several other sentences I could similarly...

Current events lead me to revisit 'The Queen' (2006), which, in addition to being an actor's movie of the highest caliber, offers a more nuanced appraisal of its subjects than I think it gets credit for.  In the popular imagination, this film is probably considered a film that is sympathetic to the Queen and to the Royals, but a rewatch reveals a film that contains as many caustic anti-Monarchy se...

Summer's over and it's time to transition to winter and that means SKI FILMS. Avoiding pap like "Ski School" and "Hot Dog: The Movie" we are instead taking up a listener suggestion to pod about 'Aspen Extreme'...a film I quote comedically (and to generally blank stares) all the time.  Turns out this movie's actually really good and a cut way above the usual dumbass soft-core porn ski comedies all...

Michael Mann's 'Heat' is many things; intensely beloved Los Angeles crime saga, De Niro-and-Pacino-onscreen-together curiosity, technically brilliant filmmaking accomplishment, both genre-defining and genre-busting, a tour-de-force of casting, atour-de-force of acting, a tour-de-force of directing, writing, editing, production design, and score....it has enduring presence and continued influence. ...

In this episode, we revisit Brian DePalma's 1981 thriller 'Blow Out', which reunited the director with his 'Carrie' supporting actor John Travolta, who, fives years later, was post-'Saturday Night Fever', 'Grease' and 'Urban Cowboy' and was now one of Hollywood's biggest stars. 'Blow Out' was one of DePalma's most personal films, stemming from his obsessions with the Kennedy Assassination, voyeuri...

Thrilled to revisit 1979's seminal teen-angst/school destruction fantasy 'Over The Edge'...a teen film to rule them all, a movie that more accurately captures the bonds of youthful friendship and the bounds of self-discovery than all the John Hughes films combined.  Using a mix of first-time, inexperienced, and non-professional locals as actors, the Colorado-shot film has an authenticity and verac...

A random IG post sends Jason down the Joe Spinell wormhole and he emerges in 1973 to experience for the first time 'Cops and Robbers', Aram Avakian's film of a Donald E. Westlake comedy screenplay about two NYC cops who decide to try their hand on the other side of the law.  Featuring pitch-perfect period performances (say that 10 times fast)...'Cops and Robbers' is a really good gem of a 70's fil...

Ethan Hawke's meta-documentary about the lives, love, losses, and careers of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward is a worthwhile, often confounding effort with rewards and challenges alike.  In this episode Jason talks about the origin of the documentary in the discovery of some transcripts of interviews conducted by a Newman associate in pursuit of a memoir and biography that Newman wanted to work on...

When James Caan died last week at 82 it was cause for a pause of appreciation for the work he left behind. I went searching for a 70's Caan film I hadn't yet seen, having done most of his ouvre at one time or another.  I settled on Czech filmmaker Karel Reisz' brilliant 1974 film 'The Gambler', based on a James Toback script and I'm so glad I did. Before jumping into that film, this episode offers...